Bike Camping

A heavenly end to the day in Utah's Valley of the Gods

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Spend some time thinking about where you want to take your bike on a bike-camping trip. Not all trails are suitable or legally allow for such an adventure. No hard and fast rules exist for finding the right trail, but look for certain qualities. The most important is location. Remember: This is not a point-to-point tour. The idea is to reach a base camp where the main rides will start.

Leaving a parked vehicle overnight at a trailhead can be an unnerving adventure in itself. No one wants to return after having had a great time all weekend in the woods only to find that the motorized means of transportation has been vandalized. This will likely remain a serious consideration for most of us who set out on an adventure of this sort. But it is an adventure, and with adventure comes risk.

Reducing Risk

A true adventurer limits risk. One way to do this is to always carry a compass and map (the 7.5-minute series USGS quads are my favorites, despite their bulk), especially if you aren't absolutely positive about the area into which you're headed. Also, you may use a GPS as a primary way-finding tool, but don't totally rely on it to keep from getting lost. Although they're nice and, for the most part, dependable, nothing beats using common sense when exploring unfamiliar territory.

Another way to reduce risk is by arranging to have a friend or professional shuttle service take you to the trailhead. The obvious drawback is that a long and difficult ride back to civilization would be necessary if the shuttle didn't reappear, or if an emergency occurred. Yes, a cell phone might work, but my experience has been that reception is often spotty, especially in the deep woods. Still, I would take one. Of course, if the destination isn't too far from home, you can leave from your front door. Few, however, will see that as a good alternative. So, as is so often the case in life, a compromise is the best solution. And that means sacrificing some degree of security.

What I have done in the past is drive into an area, usually a national forest, and locate an ungated road that gets little use. I drive down the road and park as unobtrusively as possible. I never go so far as to pile branches over the vehicle, but I do pick a spot that won't easily be discovered by someone cruising the main road. It may sound difficult and risky, but with a little preplanning, it often presents the best course of action.

Once you've picked a parking spot, ride to the trailhead. Ideally, the trailhead should be the entry where a large network of trails — both developed and not — can be ridden and explored for a couple of days. Again, the national forests provide great opportunities for this kind of biking. Most areas in our forests have been logged. Therefore, plenty of abandoned logging roads and fire roads — probably overgrown and blocked in places — await the biker looking for a weekend of bike-camping adventure.